Did Killpack seek favor from Shurtleff?

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New e-mails raise questions about whether former Senate Majority Leader Sheldon Killpack sought a favor from Utah's attorney general in his drunken-driving case.

That's how Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said Friday he interpreted a recent request from the ex-lawmaker's lawyer seeking a break in Killpack's license suspension.

Attorney Ed Brass said he was not looking for special treatment for Killpack and that his client had nothing to do with the request for leniency.

Brass contacted the Attorney General's Office on Aug. 23, inquiring whether Shurtleff might be willing to intervene and reduce his client's 18-month license suspension. The suspension is automatic when drivers refuse to submit to a breath test.

"Sheldon thinks you might be able to persuade Shurtleff to help [with] the length of his license suspension. Anything to that?" Brass wrote to Wade Farraway, Shurtleff's legislative liaison.

Shurtleff's deputy, John Swallow, responded that such involvement would be improper.

"I don't think Mark would even consider getting involved in this issue, nor would I approach him about it," Swallow wrote. "Sheldon is a friend to all of us here, however, I think it would harm our office and be inappropriate to get any of us involved."

Shurtleff later confirmed that view in an e-mail to his deputies, curtly dismissing the request: "John is correct. No way. Especially with him challenging the stop."

Brass is fighting to have the DUI case thrown out, arguing that video from a Utah Highway Patrol trooper's car does not show any reason to have stopped the then-lawmaker Jan. 15, 2010.

"It seemed like for old times' sake, it seemed like he wanted a favor," Shurtleff said Friday. "That's what it seemed like to me. I was surprised by it."

He said Killpack had been a friend as a legislator, and he assumed the request went to Farraway rather than the attorney handling the case because Farraway is active in the Davis County Republican Party, as was Killpack.

But Brass said he was seeking "no favor at all." It was a standard tactic in which the assistant attorney general handing the case has refused to reduce the suspension. Brass said he thought he could appeal to her supervisor, adding he would do the same for other clients.

"I'm not used to negotiating cases in public. That's the odd part of all this, that somehow this is unusual," he said. "All I'm trying to do is get his suspension brought in line with something that is more typical of what is common for a first offender. ... This whole thing was my idea and I think it's kind of wrong to put it on Sheldon."

The UHP video shows Killpack wobbling during field-sobriety tests, but he refused a breath test. Blood tests show his blood alcohol level was 0.11 percent, above the 0.08 legal limit.

The Salt Lake Tribune obtained the e-mails from the Attorney General's Office through an open-records request.